At Berea, 11 centers focused on building community and promoting retention are fundamental components of campus life. These centers represent unique and diverse groups that comprise an equally unique community.
While promoting diversity and understanding through the sharing and teaching of cultures, there’s another part to each center’s purpose: belonging. On Berea’s campus, with everyone busy with classes and work, sometimes it can be difficult to make social connections, build relationships or find a group of friends who make individuals feel they belong. The centers excel in building uniqueness and diversity on campus, as they often help students find their place in the world by giving them a space to be themselves and meet other like-minded people.
The centers include the Loyal Jones Appalachian Center (LJAC), Black Cultural Center, Carter G. Woodson Center for Interracial Education, Espacio Cultural Latinx, Francis and Louise Hutchins Center for International Education, bell hooks center, Willis D. Weatherford Jr. Campus Christian Center, Center for Excellence in Learning through Service, Center for Teaching and Learning, Nontraditional Student Center and Forestry Outreach Center. All are geared toward creating belonging, encouraging retention and service to community.
Students can find belonging through these centers as active participants or through work positions that give them learning and leadership opportunities in the spaces, as well. “As a Bonner Scholar, the places I can work for my labor position are limited,” said Izzy ’26, who works at LJAC and is Appalachian. “I knew I wanted to work a community-based position, so I reached out to the Appalachian Center and worked out a situation where I could work with Appalachian non-profits.”
Beyond providing an opportunity to learn about and meet others from Appalachia, Izzy’s work has reinforced her sense of belonging on campus by providing a space for her to study her home region, talk with other Appalachian people and contribute to the community through research.
Coming to Berea, seeing the Appalachian Center and finding my hometown on their map really created a sense of belonging for me and for other people I know.”
Izzy ’26
“Coming to Berea, seeing the Appalachian Center and finding my hometown on their map really created a sense of belonging for me and for other people I know,” she said.
Even those without a background in Appalachia still find their way to the center. LJAC serves as a space for people, Appalachian or otherwise, to hang out, study, work on homework or otherwise enjoy the company of people. That sense of belonging is important, especially on a college campus.
“As college students, we’re all away from what we know, so it’s important for a campus to have that sense of belonging,” Izzy said.
That welcoming nature carries over not just in the Appalachian Center’s daily operations, but in the big events the center hosts on campus as well.
“People from different academic disciplines across campus come to attend pretty much every event offered, MG ’24 said. “People who are into the particular craft happening that week will come in for the craft night, folks who want to hear about the certain art form or community work the speakers are discussing will come, and students from all across campus will come to see their friends’ work displayed in the center.”
Events and groups aren’t the full story, though. Another way centers help students feel like they belong is by elevating their individual experiences and letting their voices be heard. Appalachian voices can easily be drowned out in the larger conversations happening across the country, and the Appalachian Center’s welcoming atmosphere helps significantly to bridge that divide.
Not only have I felt secure in my identity in an academic way, but it’s so fun to have a place on campus where I can talk about being Appalachian both with people also from the area and people interested in the area.”
MG ’24
“Not only have I felt secure in my identity in an academic way, but it’s so fun to have a place on campus where I can talk about being Appalachian both with people also from the area and people interested in the area,” MG continued. “Spending time in the center and attending events there makes me feel like what I have to say about the region and as a person from the region really matters.”
Much like the inclusive atmosphere of the Appalachian Center, the Black Cultural Center (BCC) strives to provide services and programs for not only Berea’s Black and African American students on campus, but for the rest of the campus community as well. Allison ’25, who works at the BCC works with the center to help engage the community.
Events like Kula Kusoma, where the Center invites alumni to campus to present about their careers after Berea, and the Students United to Create Cultural and Educationally Successful Situations (S.U.C.C.E.S.S.) Program, where incoming first-year African and African American students can receive assistance in navigating life in Berea, help facilitate an encouraging atmosphere and help students get acclimated.
The BCC, on top of holding its own events, collaborates with other centers as well. For Allison, the collaborative nature of Berea’s centers adds to the campus sense of belonging and helps her and students like her to broaden their involvement on campus by interacting with each other. She hopes to further this work through programs like the Appalachian Center’s visit to the BCC and some of the collaborations done with other centers and departments on campus.
“We collaborated with the Espacio Cultural Latinx a lot this year, and I’m working on reaching out to other centers to start collaboration programs next semester,” Allison said.
In addition, Allison recalled how the BCC became a place for her to get involved in the community, catch up on schoolwork and really find a place to fit in in the Berea community.
“At the start of my freshman year, I was really behind on my schoolwork, and I didn’t have anywhere to go after class where I felt like I could get the support I needed,” she said. “One of my friends introduced me to the Black Cultural Center, and it was there that I was always able to go after school, socialize and meet people, and it has truly helped me.”
